Tears of the Broken
by wisdom-of-me
Summary: FT Angst Week for 2015, so far covering Bonus Prompt 1: Ever After, Prompt 1: Scars, Prompt 2: Demons/ Monsters, Prompt 3: Broken Hearted/ Broken Promises, Prompt 4: Bleeding Out/ Bandages, Prompt 5: Gone Forever, Prompt 6: Incinerate and Prompt 7: E.N.D. Chp 8: Lucy is Lucy, why was that so hard to remember?
1. Starcrossed

Once upon a time there lived a star, blessed by the heavens to shine upon the growing world below. With her brothers and sisters shining beside her, the blessed star lived happily, finding entertainment in watching the creatures that lived on the world, oblivious to the spectators overhead.

Centuries passed of the star watching these creatures in the darkness of the night and she slowly began to feel fond of these creatures, humans, they called themselves. She smiled at their happiness and cried at their sorrow. She laughed when they were entertained and raged with them when they were unjustly treated. But there was one emotion she could not share with them.

Love.

An emotion that these humans seemed to covert above all others. They shared it with those who looked after them and those who they looked after and the blessed star thought of her siblings, the many millions of them that she shared the sky with. She loved them with all of her heart. But she did not love them as the humans did.

The humans experienced love other than that of family. It caused them to do foolish and reckless things that they would not do otherwise, they loved with their entire being, their entire soul, and the loss of a loved one cause unimaginable grief. But the star could only watch with desperate fascination, unable to comprehend how the humans could feel in such a manner.

And how she wished to feel it too.

But, as she focused all of her energy into trying to understand, she was oblivious to the fear of her siblings as they watched her sink lower and lower in the night sky.

They tried to distract her, to take her attention away from the humans for a moment, but nothing would work. Not even when her eldest brother begged her to look away, she could not. For her eyes were always drawn back to the fumbling short lives of the human and her mind would always return to dwell on the one thing she could not understand.

With heavy hearts her siblings let her be, unable to force her to give up the creatures that fills her with such joy.

And so she hung, for a millennia more, the brightest star in the sky, and she would watch as the humans lived and loved. Content just to observe as understanding continued to elude her.

Until one night when a lost little boy looked up.

The pink haired boy had been lost in a deep forest for days without food or water and, as his legs gave way beneath him, he turned to the night sky and cried for help.

And a voice answered him.

The brightest star in the sky had watched the boy as he had stumbled deeper and deeper into the woods. She had grown more and more concerned for him as he left his home further and further behind him, and so, when he called out for help, she gave in to the ache in her heart and replied.

With the last of the night sky falling past the horizon, the star managed to guide the boy to a creek that she could see from above before he vanished from her view.

The star spent the day worried, with her view of the boy blinded by the sun she was helpless, oblivious to his fate. The most she could do was pray to the heavens for the boy's wellbeing and hope.

But her panic did not go unnoticed by her concerned siblings. Her eldest sister watched on in fear as her beloved sister unknowingly drew closer and closer to the edge of the sky in her panic. She tried to call out to her, to warn her of her looming fate if she did not heed her siblings' cries, but the blessed star was deaf to their concern as she awaited the rising of the night.

But finally it came.

The moment the star could see the world again she searched for the small creek she had guided the boy to. But he was not there. Fearing wolves, or the monsters that lurked in the shadows of the forest, the star scoured the forest from above, equally terrified of finding him and never seeing him again. But she could not find him, no matter where she looked, and as dawn brushed the edge of the horizon she began to sob.

Her chest heaved and her eyes were swollen from the tears and she feared that she would never stop. Until a small voice cried out,

_'Thank you!'_

And her view of the world was once again stolen from her for another day.

This time, when the night finally returned to the world, the blessed star searched once again and found the boy outside his home.

He called out to her with a grin, much too loud for the hour he had chosen, and she could not help but respond in return. A seed of fondness had bloomed in her heart and she found herself smiling back at him.

The boy told her all about what had happened after she had guided him to the creek. About how he had drank until he could drink no more and then slept in the shade of one of the nearby trees and how that's how his family found him, asleep and alive thanks to her. As he finally finished his story a voice from inside his home called out, telling him to come back inside. But before he did he made the star promise to talk to him again the next night. He had a lot to tell her, he said. And he had stories that would amaze her!

The star could only laugh and agree to his promise, saying that she would love to hear his stories.

And she did.

She listened to them for years, as night after night he told her about his adventures with his friends, and the pranks that they would play. He stopped talking to her out the front of his house when winter arrived and instead would throw open his window shutters each night, his enthusiasm not a bit dampened when the chilly winds swept through his bedroom. She learnt about his favourite foods as he would attempt to describe what flavours were, and his pet cat Happy, who was his best friend in the entire world! He told her about his parents and how his dad was a dragon slayer and how he wanted to grow up to be exactly like him-

Eventually he began to ask her questions. He asked her what it was like up in the night sky, if she could see the entire would from up there. She answered all of his questions with a fond smile, the same fond smile that would light up her face when he claimed that he could point her out of the night sky because she was the brightest. After a few years he began to ask her about the stories she had seen from the sky and so she told him about heroes and legends. About damsels that had to save themselves when their princes never arrived and villains who were far kinder to the unfortunate than the heroes ever were. He would listen silently with a rapt fascination, and when she questioned him he claimed that her stories were far more interesting than his ever were.

And it was on a warm summer night like this, as the boy listened from the hillside beside his house, when she realized that the boy was no longer a boy.

He was a man.

And the warmth in her chest that echoed in her smiles was no longer fondness, but something more.

In her shock she had stopped talking as a question echo in her mind like a long lost memory. The one question she had never been able to answer. The pink haired man interrupted her thoughts, asking if something was wrong and looking to the sky in concern. Her heart gave a nervous thump before she decided to ask him about what she could never understand. The one emotion she had failed to share with the people of his world.

And, like always, he replied with a grin that lit up the darkness around him.

'_Love is the feeling in my chest I get when I look at you.'_

The blessed star's heart stuttered before filling with the warmth, that she was all too familiar with, and a yearning.

She wanted to reach out to him.

And so she stretched her arms forward, reaching down from the night sky and letting her fingertips brush the edge of the world. But they could reached no closer.

Despair flooded her heart, quenching the warmth and causing her to recoil, because she could get no closer. She would never get any closer.

A sob broke past her lips and the young man leapt to his feet, begging her to tell him what was wrong.

But she would not answer.

He cried out to her all night but still she refused to respond. She remained silent even as the sun broke the horizon and he cried out to her one last time. Promising that he would return the next night and the night after that and every night until the end of time until she answered him. But the blessed star, with her light dimming in her grief, could only cry, because she knew that he could not help her. He could not help her and she mourned, for she had finally tasted love and it was the most painful thing she had ever felt.

When the man returned to the hillside the next night, keeping to his word, she remained silent. She remained silent as he begged and pleaded and promised once again that he would not give up. And a tiny part of her could only agree, he was far too stubborn to give up that easily. But she was a star, and she had already lived through eternity, she could wait him out.

And so morning came without a response from the star, and she kept her promise to herself, remaining silent the next night she watched the young man beg from his hilltop and the next and the next. But as the months passed, both the young man and the star refusing to give in, the tortured silence began to take a heavy toll on the once blessed star as her light grew dimmer and dimmer.

Once again the star's siblings began to grow overwhelmingly concerned for their sister, and they tried everything in their power to cheer her up. But nothing could take away the pain that was reflected in her eyes, in her every action, but most of all, in her light. As she grew dimmer and dimmer, her light and laughter fading with every passing night, her eldest brother and her eldest sister could only watch on in sorrow. For they knew of the fate that would befall their sister if this continued.

But neither of them could find a way to prevent it, as each night she would go back to watching the man that had captured the star's heart. Every night he returned to the hillside, his eyes staring at her unwaveringly as she grew more and more distant, and continued to tell her every detail about his day, about stories he'd found for her, about how much he missed her.

And even through the sadness the star's love for him grew impossibly.

It grew until it consumed her entire body, her entire being and then, when she could no longer hold the weight of her love for him in the night sky-

She fell.

Her brothers and sisters watched on in horror, knowing the fate that would befall her when she final him the ground. But as the star fell, her sorrows were thrown from her heart and left to trail behind her and she could not help but laugh as the world that she had watched over for too many centuries grew closer to her than it had ever been.

She hit the ground with an earth shattering crack as debris flew around her, stones tearing at her and hurting her and she felt physical pain for the first time since she had been created. But as the dust settled around her all she could do was stare back up at her siblings, because that's what she looked like from down here. And as a head of pink hair blocked her view of the night sky she realized that he had loved her anyway.

The man's hands clung to her shoulders as he cried out to her to respond, but she could already feel herself fading.

But that was okay. She had lived a long life and she only had one thing left to do anyway.

With agonising slowness as her body was wracked with pain, the star rested her hand on the man's cheek and whispered-

'_Thank you for letting me love you.'_

A with a last breath her body crumbled away into fine flecks of light, leaving the man alone in the dark.

As his hands grasped at nothing the man screamed in agony and tears blurred his vison of the spot when his love had lain only moments ago. His grief shuddered throughout his body and mind and, as he once done as a child, he turned to the sky and cried out for help.

The blessed star's brothers and sisters, who had turned to the humans' world for the first time in a millennia, scorned his cry. They would help the human that had stolen their beloved sister from the night sky.

But the blessed star's eldest brother and eldest sister sensed the love the man held in his heart for the voice that had rescued him as a child and took pity on him. The eldest brother took the man's soul from his body and released it into the cosmos, where he would spend the rest of eternity chasing the final fragments of his beloved. Then the eldest sister took the man's body and placed it in the night sky where the blessed star had once shone, where it could serve as a reminder of the consequences to those who loved what was out of their reach.

* * *

**Hey guys... So it's been a while... Yep, that's all I'm gonna say on that.  
****So I'm really sorry to return with Angst Week, just writing these things has been pretty hard for me and, honestly, I just can't wait to get back to a bit of fluff. Btw, if you, for some miraculous reason are still following me for PJO, probably not going to write anymore. I really am sorry, I wish I was inspired to write more like I thought I would be, but Blood of Olympus kinda ruined a lot of things for me so, yeah. Good news is, I am writing a ton more Fairy Tail (yay) and there may be one or two other fandoms that appear here and there~  
****Anyway, I better get back to typing up my other Angst Week stuff (whoop-di-do) so see you guys round!**

**Disclaimer****: I don't own Fairy Tail**

**-Steph**


	2. Beneath the Skin

Two days had passed since the final match of the Grand Magic Games. Which, to Lucy, meant that it'd been two days since the return of her best friend.

Well, kind of.

A campfire crackled in front of her, sending embers drifting off into the humid night air. Just yesterday Natsu had yanked her from the safe, stable life she had rebuilt in his absence and, if she were being totally honest, he had saved her again.

But, had he?

Lucy gnawed on her bottom lip as her hands paused in pulling her hair into a bun. The warm weather was beginning to get to her and she really needed that hair off the back of her neck. Anyway, where was she?

Oh, that right. Just in the middle of wondering if the Natsu she got back was the same one that left her. Lucy groan and buried her face in her hands. Thank goodness she was alone, she imagined that Natsu and Happy would be giving her some weird looks by now if they hadn't gone to a nearby river to cool off.

But she was beginning to wish that she had decided to join them instead of being here, alone with only her thoughts for company.

It wasn't that Natsu had obviously changed, aside from the newfound strength in his magic and the beefy arms Lucy felt warm just thinking about. It was more subtle then that. It was like he had found a purpose, aside from bringing his friends back together. Like he now understood something about himself that he hadn't known before. He seemed almost, dare she say it-

Mature.

But Lucy just sighed and waved the idea off. She was surely overthinking things. Natsu could never act mature, and he still definitely wasn't! Not after making her flee from an army of guards.

Ugh, he made her leave all of her stuff behind!

Plus anyone would change in a year, even she had. Although it felt less like she had changed and more like she had been-

"Yo, Luce!"

Her head sprung up from where it had been resting on her knees and her mind was jolted from her thoughts as Natsu and Happy approached. Natsu was shirtless, as he all too often was, with only his bandage covering is right arm and his signature scarf slung over his shoulder. Sometimes Lucy wished her partner wasn't so attractive.

"Lucy!" Happy cried as he hovered above Natsu's shoulder. "The river was great, even though there were no fish. You should go take a bath too!"

Lucy scowled and narrowed her eyes at the pesky exceed. "Are you saying that I smell, cat?"

Happy snickered and hid behind Natsu's shoulder. "You said it, not me."

Lucy inhaled, ready to give that damn blue cat a piece of her mind, when she was distracted by a chuckle.

A deep chuckle.

"Don't be mean, Happy, Lucy smells fine," Natsu tilted his head and sniffed and Lucy jumped as she realized that he was smelling _her_. "Like pine trees and the forest after the rain," he grinned. "Nice."

Lucy stared at her folded hand in her lap as her cheeks flushed a deep red. Natsu flopped down on the other side of the campfire, ignoring Happy as he snickered behind his paw before landing beside him.

"He liiiikes her."

"But seriously, the water was great! You should've come," he spoke over the sound of rustling as he dropped his scarf next to him and began to dig through his bag.

With his focus elsewhere Lucy figured that it'd be safe to look up. "Maybe I will in a bit…"

And then her eyes landed on his back.

All of her breath left her lungs as the sight came into focus and her hand instinctively went to reach out to him before she yanked it back to her chest. With his sharp dragon-like hearing picking up her gasp, Natsu turned around to look at her with a worried expression.

And shirtless.

"Luce"-

"Where did you get those scars?!"

Natsu's face instantly relaxed before scrunching up in confusion. He twisted his neck in an attempt to see what Lucy was so panicked about and recognition immediately flooded his eyes.

"Oh, those scars? I don't know, they're pretty old…" Natsu mumbled as he scratched at his chin thoughtfully.

After a moment he shrugged and turned back to his bag as his hands finally fumbled upon what he'd been searching for. Happy cheered as Natsu tossed him a fish before he began to munch on it contently.

It was fine that Natsu was so nonchalant about this issue, but Lucy knew exactly how old those scars were.

Less than a year.

Lucy had seen Natsu shirtless plenty of times, maybe a few more times then was deemed appropriate for friends, but those scars had never been there before.

"You got those while you were gone, didn't you?"

Natsu turned and stared into her eyes from across the fire, a rare kind of curiosity shining in his own.

"Some of them," he said finally as he pulled a shirt from his bag and pulled it over his head.

"Some of them?" Lucy repeated with obvious interest.

"Natsu sighed and paused with only his head through the hole.

"You see this one?" he asked as he twisted his back towards her and awkwardly twisted his arm to point at a scar on his lower back which trailed diagonally down to his side. "I go this one from a boar that ambushed Happy and I while we were fishing."

"Aye!" Happy added, pausing from his treat for a brief moment. "It was huge, with glowy red eyes! But Natsu couldn't smell it cause he was complaining about the fishy stink!"

Happy grinned at Natsu like they shared a secret and Lucy realized that they did. An entire year worth of secrets.

"Yeah, we got pretty relaxed out there, didn't we bub?" Natsu asked and Happy hummed in reply but was already too focused on his meal to offer any more commentary.

Lucy laughed lightly into her palm at the two of them before scanning Natsu's back again, desperate for more stories.

"What about the one on the back of your right shoulder?" she asked, pointing to a splotchy sort of discoloured spot on his back.

"You mean this one?" he asked as he looked at her over his shoulder and tapped his hand around the area she had indicated. "Oh, that's from when we saw Gildarts!"

"You saw Gildarts?!" Lucy cried in surprise. "What was he doing?!"

Natsu scrunched up his face as he attempted to think back. "Well, he said he was in the middle of a 10 year job, but we travelled with him for about a week and he didn't seem like he was in much of a rush or anything," Natsu fully turned back to Lucy as his excitement got the better of him. "It was great actually! We got to hang out and train with him for a while! That's where I got the scar. We were fighting and he sent me flying into a buncha rocks and I landed a little funny and got that."

He finished by tapping his shoulder with a proud grin and leaning back onto his arms, his shirt still hanging ridiculously around his neck. Lucy could only smile at his Natsu-ness and get up to toss a few more pieces of firewood onto the campfire.

"It sounds like you guys had a lot of fun," she said with a fond lilt creeping into her voice.

"Yeah," Natsu hummed as the fire flared up from the added wood and he finally finished pulling his shirt on properly before wrapping his scarf around his neck. "But not as much fun as when we're with you."

Lucy hesitated for a moment as she pushed the _'why'_ that had built up in her chest back down. Now wasn't the time.

Instead she sat back down, next to Natsu and the now napping Happy, and pointed to the only visible scar left, one that'd normally be covered by his single sleeve.

"What about that one?"

And, as the words left her lips, she watched a light flicker and die in his eyes at the same time.

Natsu licked his lips and brushed his hand under his nose as he attempted to build up the strength to speak.

"It's from when I was fighting Mard Geer," he murmured in a soft voice. "When Igneel died."

That was when Lucy finally saw Natsu's real scars. Not the ones he displayed on his skin and boasted about, the ones that had torn and ripped at his soul. That had healed slowly over time, but would never truly be the same again.

But she had those too.

Taking a short breath to allow herself a moment to dredge up her confidence and to double check that the cat was still asleep, Lucy gripped the hem of her shirt and pulled.

She could've laughed at the mixture of fear and confusion that crossed Natsu's face but, instead, she granted him a small mercy and stopped just so the folded material of her shirt still covered her breasts.

"See this," she said as one of her fingers traced a puckered line that ran beneath her right breast. "I got it when we were fighting Tartarus, when all of you were stuck in the walls."

Lucy's eyes closed as she remembered that last look of desperation on Natsu's face as he had lunged for her, their finger separated only by millimetres.

But her eyes shot open again as she felt another, warmer hand trace her scar.

Natsu, with his hand spread above her waist and his thumb following the pink line, stared at her with dark hooded eyes that made her heart skip a beat.

Was this really the same Natsu Dragneel she once knew?

"I'm sorry," his voice was thick and heavy as he stared into her wide eyes. "I should've been there, I should've been able to save you."

Lucy felt the curve of her mouth soften and her heart swell with affection for this man.

"You did all you could," she reassured him, releasing her shirt and picking his hands up in her own. "And you can't save me all the time."

Her lips pursed as she remembered the hot tears on her cheeks and the shattered remains of her beloved key slicing into the skin of her clenched fists.

"But I want to," Natsu interrupted her thoughts as his hands tightened around hers. "I want to be there for you, _always_"-

"Natsu."

Lucy pulled her hands from his grasp and stood. She brushed the dirt from the back of her skirt and avoided making eye contacted with the boy that had abandoned her for an entire year.

"I think it's time we went to sleep."

Natsu swallowed and nodded slowly, suffering whiplash from the new barriers that surrounded this Lucy.

"Yeah," he mumbled as Lucy chucked one last log on the fire for the night.

Then she circled to the other side of the campfire and laid down on her sleeping bag.

"G'night Luce," Natsu said as he stared at her back through the fire and mourned the new distance between them.

"Good night Natsu, see you in the morning," Lucy replied, her back solid and unmoving.

"Yeah, see you."

Tears fell from her eyes as she pulled the edge of the sleeping bag to her lips.

It looked like their scars affected them both.

* * *

**Haha, finished the first Prompt for Angst Week! And I changed the title so I can just dump all of my angst week stuff here. Thanks btw, to everyone who read and/or liked or reviewed my story! It means a lot to me that I can share my work with you guys! Now, I have to go type out tomorrow's story as I am officially a few days behind schedule. Bye!**


	3. His Strength

He was back here again.

It was the smell that alerted him to it, like it always did. The scent of charred wood surrounded him and would've been overwhelming if it weren't for the stink of blood and decay coming from next to him. He moaned in despair as he felt hard bark dig into his knees and shins and the ache in his shoulders as his wrists were bound with metal cuffs behind him. He knew what sight would be before him when he opened his eyes, and he didn't want to see it, not now, not ever.

"No," his voice was a low broken whine. "Not again, not tonight."

But he knew all the begging in the world could never prevent this as a clawed hand grabbed his pink locks and yanked his head upright.

"Wake up Natsu," a too familiar voice crooned in his ear. "Wake up, I have a gift for you..."

Natsu rocked forwards as the his captor let go of him, letting him fall to the ground and groan as the impact reopened wounds that hadn't had enough time to heal. After a moment he tried to push himself back up onto his knees but, with his hands bound behind his back, he gave up after only a few attempts. He could hear something being dragged along the forest floor, closer and closer until there was a thump as it was dumped beside him.

Not again. _Please_. He didn't want to watch _again_.

"C'mon now Natsu, I would hate for you to miss this. Or perhaps you want me to begin first..."

He didn't want to but it was a terrible torture he couldn't turn his eyes from.

Natsu's eyes cracked opened, wincing for a moment as even the moon overhead shone too brightly, and his dry tongue darted over his torn lips. Finally, his eyes landed on who the monster had brought him this time.

"No, not her. Don't hurt her," the groan slipped through his lips as he struggled to his knees again. He couldn't do this, he would not let that monster tear at her like the others.

Lucy laid in the dirty beside him, gagged and bound and covered in bruises and wounds slowly oozing with blood. She looked beaten but her eyes screamed that she was anything but defeated. They shone with defiance and he could feel her willing him to fight, trying to give him the strength to go on through simple eye contact.

Eye contact he could not keep as he pressed his face back into the ground.

He had always thought of her like her beloved stars, always shining even in the darkest of times, and even now she continued to dazzle him.

What a pity he was already broken.

Natsu scrunched his eyes closed again as his tormentor stepped towards him, ignoring Lucy's muffled cries of anger.

"Now, now Natsu," he mocked. "That's no way to treat a lady."

The beast's claws dug into Natsu's cheeks as he was forced to make eye contact with the demon. With himself.

"Yes, see that Lucy dear?" E.N.D purred. "You're looking for a hero, but you won't find one here."

E.N.D flung Natsu back into the dirt, disgust written across his face, and Natsu could feel Lucy's gaze boring into the back of his head.

"Did he tell you about his _feelings_ before he left?" E.N.D mocked as he crouched beside Lucy. "Did he tell you about how he _cared_ for you? About how he wanted to _protect_ you?"

Anger boiled in Natsu's chest as he watched the demon run a nail down the side of Lucy's cheek. The grimy nail drew blood but Lucy didn't even flinch, instead she just stared down the monster that could kill her without a second thought.

"Did he tell you about _me_?"

Lucy's shoulders jolted and a tiny glimmer of hurt was reflected in her eyes for barely a moment before she stuffed it back down. And Natsu knew why. Because he hadn't told her. He hadn't told anyone.

And now here they were.

"Leave her alone," Natsu growled as he finally pulled himself back up to his knees.

"Oooh," E.N.D's twisted grin stretched across his face. "Getting all protective of your girl"-

"Lucy's not mine," Natsu panted angrily, the small physical effort taking a toll on his body. "Lucy belongs to herself."

Out of the corner of his eye Natsu caught Lucy looking up at him, a spark of hope shining in her eyes. It filled Natsu with pride but E.N.D caught the look and a scowl overtook his features.

"You're wrong," he snarled and grabbed Lucy by her hair, pulling her roughly to her feet.

Nastu tried to follow them at Lucy's muffled cry of pain but E.N.D just kicked him in the chest, sending him back to the ground.

"She's mine now, and I can do whatever I want to her," E.N.D's eyes turned a solid black as he dragged Lucy closer to Natsu. "I can do to her what I did to your other friends," E.N.D's eyes trailed off to the left of Natsu, but he refused to follow his gaze.

He knew what he would see if he looked and he did not want to.

"But she is _special_ isn't she?" E.N.D pulled Lucy closer to himself and leered at her snarling face, and then the rest of her. "I know what you think of her, you can't lie to me."

Natsu's vision blurred red as the demon rested his free hand on Lucy's waist. She did not flail her limbs or struggle like many others would've done in the face of evil. Instead, as his sharp claws sliced through her gag, she held her head high and spat in the face that had once solely belonged to her best friend.

E.N.D roared and, before Natsu even had a chance to cry out a warning, struck Lucy across the face, sending her to the ground with the force.

"Lucy!"

"You bitch!" he snarled and, for a moment, Lucy did not move.

She laid still, splayed out on the ground in front of Natsu, until she raised her head and licked her dry lips. From above E.N.D wiped the spit from his face and growled in irritation.

"You've made this a lot easier for me _girl_," he sneered. "I don't know why you continue to fight. He's of no help to you anyway."

Without moving a muscle, or revealing to the demon that she had heard him, Lucy looked Natsu in the eye and saw exactly what he had been talking about. There was no light, no fire in his eyes, and he could barely hold her gaze for more than a moment.

"He's already killed your comrades," E.N.D said as he nodded to the left of Natsu a second time.

Lucy's eyes widened in alarm and she turned to look at the space her eyes had been avoiding the entire time. Natsu knew what she would find. And he knew exactly how she would react.

Just like he had known how everyone else would react.

"You see, Lucy dear, Natsu and I are one and the same. You think we're separate, but we're not," E.N.D's eyes glinted with a murderous light. "Not really."

Lucy didn't even react, she didn't- couldn't tear her eyes from the sight.

The sight of her comrades' corpses.

Erza, Gray, Mira, Juvia- they were all there, piled up and covered in dry blood. Elfman, Laxus, Levy, even Wendy and Happy, who laid the closest to Natsu's side. Every single member of Fairy Tail.

Every member but her.

Natsu had memorised their exact positioning, their still expressions and the colour in their vacant eyes. It was his burden to carry, his punishment for putting them there. And the moment Lucy opened her mouth, she would join them, the last one to join their number.

Their words had doomed them all like her words would doom her.

Erza had accused him of being a monster; Gray had looked him in the eye and told him he deserved to die. Even Happy and Wendy had cried and called him a killer.

Natsu pressed his face into the dirt and moaned.

"Not her, _please_, let her go."

"You know how this works," E.N.D replied as he watched Lucy struggle to her feet and stumble to her friends. "They must be judged."

Lucy knelt by Wendy's side and bushed a lock of her hair back from her frozen face with her bound hands. As tears welled in her eyes she turned to Happy and scratched him behind his left ear, like she used to do when he curled up in her lap. Her gaze wandered from Gray's bloodied back to the empty shoulder where Erza's right arm used to be to the mauling on Elfman's chest. And after a heavy moment she pushed herself to her feet.

The time had come and Natsu knew that after this, he would never recover.

Lucy stood between Natsu and a grinning E.N.D, her watery eyes gazing above Natsu's head. She licked her lips a final time and took one last breath before she spoke.

"He's not you."

Natsu's gaze met hers and through her watery eyes and trembling lips he could see her smile. The one she used to give him on missions, when he crashed at her place, when she saw him at the guild hall each morning.

The smile that cried out, _'I care about you.'_

"Don't let him make you think that you're the same," she said and then, mustering up every ounce of strength she had left, she gave him his smile. "Because I'll never give up on you."

The moment the last word left her lips she lurched forward, her eyes widening in pain, as a clawed hand was thrust through her chest.

"_LUCY!"_

"Goddamnit, I hate it when she does that," E.N.D muttered as Lucy's body vanished in a shower of light. "I thought I almost had you this time, she was fucking crying and everything."

The cuffs that bound Natsu's hands abruptly vanished and then-

Nothing.

He was floating in nothing.

He looked around in confusion but when his eyes landed on E.N.D, floating across from him, his heart filled with rage.

"_HOW DARE YOU"-_

"Please control yourself," the demon snapped irritably. "Your emotions are pointless."

Natsu went to lunge for him but was unable to move in this darkness, in fact all he managed to do was give himself a headache.

"You are acting like a child, surely you have remembered by now."

And he had. As the pain in his head spiked, he remembered.

Goddamnit, he was dreaming.

"We wouldn't have to do this every night if you would just give me control," E.N.D said. "Although, I won't need your consent soon. I've almost won."

And he had almost won. The dreams had been going for months now, picking through his guild mates and forcing him to kill them when his memories of them stopped believing in him. He'd dreamed of Happy for an entire month alone before his best friend had met his bloody end.

_Because I'll never give up on you._

Lucy's last words echoed in his mind and Natsu watched as E.N.D scowled.

"That stupid girl, you'll give up on her soon enough," he snapped. "You're not strong enough to last much longer."

"I'm not," Natsu agreed and E.N.D narrowed his eyes in confusion. "Because I'm alone. We're always stronger when we're together."

E.N.D scoffed at Natsu's words as the darkness began to turn to a blinding white. "We'll see dragon-boy."

And with a shudder, he was awake.

"Natsu?" Happy asked as he hovered over him. "Are you up yet, I'm hungry!"

"Yeah, I'm up," Natsu grumbled, the last memories of his dream fading in the morning sunlight. "What do we have for today?"

Happy dug his paws into his bag and held up the last of their food.

"We have fish, or fish!"

Nastu groaned and rolled over, not looking forward to more fish one bit, as a memory or a memory echoed in his head.

_Because I'll never give up on you._

Where had he heard that before?

"Hmm, Happy?" Natsu asked as he sat up and scratched his head.

Happy hummed in reply, already munching on his breakfast, and Natsu took that as a sign to continue.

"What do you think of going back to Magnolia?"

"Going back to Fairy Tail?" Happy asked cautiously as he placed his fish carefully on the ground.

"Yeah, I mean, it's almost been a year, hasn't it?"

Happy cheered and tackled Natsu in a hug.

"Aye! I can't wait to see everyone! Do you think Mira will still have fish? Maybe Carla missed me?" Happy buzzed around Natsu's head excitedly. "Can we stop at Lucy's place first?! I want to show her how much stronger I am!"

Natsu paused for a moment, a strange chill running through his body, before he brushed it off as excitement.

"Yeah, of course we'd go see Lucy first! She's our partner!"

Happy's cheers felt muted, as Natsu knocked a fist against his chest. He felt hollow.

_We'll see dragon-boy._

He needed his strength.

* * *

**Ah, I know cheesy title. But hey, she is, isn't she? Whelp, that's my last Nalu one for a few days, you guys should at least have a short Gruvia/ Juvia-centric one coming up and a Gajevy one! I hope you guys keep enjoying these, because they are a _pain_ to write... So many cute AUs are being planned right now, you don't even know!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything. At all.**

**-Steph.**


	4. Words Left Unsaid

It had been six of the best months of Juvia's life. Training and living with Gray had been amazing in ways she couldn't explain.

And in ways she could.

Ever since she had met Gray, and he had given her the strength to stop her dreary rain, she had felt connected to him. A connection that couldn't be severed until she could fully express her gratitude for the day they met to him, her gratitude for saving her.

But, no matter what she offered him, assistance in jobs, handmade gifts, her _heart_, he didn't seem to understand their importance. He couldn't understand what she was trying to say.

But in the last six months- Oh, in the last six months, she had felt so _happy_. She had finally been able to help her beloved. She showed him training techniques that she had used at Phantom Lord as part of the Element 4, she had been able to help him cook meals that weren't instant. She had been able to make a difference in his day-to-day life.

And how could she ask for anything more?

To laugh with him, to live with him, to worry about him…

She had worried about him too much. Whenever he announced that he'd be gone for a few days as the black marks stretched across his chest, Juvia's throat would constrict and she'd struggle to breathe until he returned home safely. She was unable to distract herself, not with training or reading or any of her favourite hobbies.

All she could do was wait.

But this time, as he stood in the doorway, bag in hand and his jacket slung over his bare shoulder, she knew it was different. It was in the crease of his eyes, the crooked line of his smile.

'_Thank you,'_ they said.

'_Sorry,' _they said.

And that was when she knew that, finally, after all this time, she had gotten through to him.

He understood.

And so, all she could do when he said, "I'll be back in a few days," was fight back her tears and smile like she believed that he would return.

"Stay safe on your trip Gray-sama!" she said instead of grabbing him by the arm and pulling him back into their home.

'_Come back to me one day,'_ was what she meant.

At the sound of her voice Gray paused in the doorway, a battle waging in his mind, before looking back to her.

"You stay safe too Juvia," and the way he said her name sounded like an apology, like a goodbye.

And so, as she watched him leave, she stood in the doorway and knew, in her heart, that he had finally understood what she had been trying to tell him all this time.

'_You have the power to save people Gray Fullbuster, thank you for choosing to save me.'_

She waited there for an hour longer, her eyes tracing and retracing the path he had taken away from her, before she finally let go of the strength he had given her, so long ago.

And the rain began falling as she allowed her heart to break in two.

* * *

**Disclaimer: I do not own Juvia, nor does anyone else. :|**


	5. Another Day

Gajeel knew that today wasn't going to be his day.

He felt it the moment he woke up in the morning, as the sun shone just a little too brightly into his eyes and how his bed felt slightly warmer than usual, just enough so he didn't want to leave. He felt it when his coffee tasted too bitter, even though he always drank it black, and when he stubbed his toe on the door frame as he and Lily entered the Council Headquarters.

Not one of the workers swarming the room outright laughed at him as he lurched forward and growled out a few too many curses for public. None of them were _that_ dumb, but he could hear the concealing coughs and the hissed breaths from behind masking hands. Even Pantherlily, in his fighting form and a whole head taller than the iron dragonslayer, was only brave enough to risk a snicker.

But one laugh did echo across the office, causing knowing grins to spread across too many faces for Gajeel's liking, a soft sound, barely muffled by a small hand. Really, the shrimp should have more tact by now.

Levy McGarden. The blue haired Council Member who had, in an unprecedented manner, rapidly ascended through the ranks to Mission Officer in an astounding six months. It wasn't the first time that she had defied all expectations to pull off an impossible stunt. No, the small braniac had also, _somehow_, wormed her way into the iron dragonslayer's steel cool heart.

But that was old news, and the file that Levy was holding in her hands appeared to be new.

"What ya got for us shrimp?" Gajeel grunted as he and Lily towered over the tiny girl.

Levy barely even batted an eyelash at the nickname anymore, and instead just handed the file to Gajeel.

"It's just a simple recon mission," she said with a smile. "So we only need you and Pantherlily to go."

Gajeel huffed in amusement as he skimmed over the briefing before he passed it on to Lily, who was sure to give it a more thorough look over. As usual, Levy was right, the mission was easy. All it asked was for Gajeel and Pantherlily to check out the base of operations of a dark guild that had recently caught the attention of the newly formed council, Aviator or something. As stated, Pantherlily would be more thorough.

"So what yer sayin' is that you've been saddled with another buttload of paperwork and are now confined to yer desk for another six hours," Gajeel snorted and glanced at Levy for confirmation that he didn't really need.

Instead of denying Gajeel's assumption the Mission Officer scowled and gave him a weak shove.

"I don't understand why you two get all the fun jobs and I'm left here with more reports to approve," she began to walk back to her desk and, as Pantherlily finished reading the file, the two of them followed her. "But don't be late back, okay? You promised to take me to the bar tonight!"

Pantherlily chuckled from beside Gajeel as he gently laid the file on Levy's desk, and even Gajeel couldn't help but give a small grin as he turned to leave. The shrimp had insisted on the three of them going out tonight, Pantherlily being her defence when others attempted to call it a 'date'. Even so, several of their co-workers had money on how the night would turn out.

"Yeah, yeah," Gajeel waved her off as he headed for the door, Pantherlily on two steps behind him. "I'll see ya later shorty."

Even as they left the room, Gajeel's dragonslayer hearing picked up the sound of Levy's huffed breath, probably from irritation, and Pantherlily's snort of amusement. Gajeel let it slide for now, but the two of them were having words after they returned from the mission.

As Gajeel had expected, the mission was pretty simple. Finding the location of the dark guild, Avatar, as Pantherlily had already corrected him half a dozen times, had been easy, and, after a quick search around the building, Gajeel and Pantherlily had decided to split up. Patherlily had taken the right side of the dark and dreary castle, heading out towards an open plain where he had a clear view of the guild's entrance. He would spend the rest of the day marking down numbers and descriptions of anyone who entered or left the building. Gajeel, on the other hand, headed towards the left of the guild and towards the back, where he would look for any secondary entrances or buildings before looping back to Pantherlily from the other side. It was a simple plan, one they used on a regular basis, and so, as he reached the rear of the castle, Gajeel had grown careless and stumbled into an ambush.

It was the moment when the first of them stepped out from behind the withered tree where he had been waiting that Gajeel had finally understood. This is what the universe had been trying to tell him all morning. And, as he sensed several others approach from behind him, he really wished that he had listened.

Gajeel would like to say that it had been a fierce battle, and in a way it had been. With the iron dragonslayer obviously outnumbered when several new adversaries burst from the second entrance that Gajeel had been looking for, just a little further ahead of him, he knew that he wouldn't walk away unscathed. And in a moment of pure frustration he thought of Pantherlily, hunkered down on the other side of this bloody castle, completely unaware of what was about to happen.

And Gajeel really couldn't help but think that he could've used the backup as he felt another knife slice across the skin of his back. He couldn't stay standing against this many opponents and, eventually, the inevitable happened.

He was overwhelmed.

The guild was never known for its mercy and so, when the number of wounds that littered his body assured them that Gajeel wouldn't get back up, they left him on the ground to bleed out slowly.

With his lungs heaving for breath and his heart beating at a furious pace only to drench the ground in his blood, Gajeel knew he didn't have long. He had no way to contact Pantherlily, no way to warn him of the trap they had stumbled into, but that was no worry.

Gajeel may not be able to warn him, but he could save him.

With the last of his strength Gajeel limped to a tree and rested against it. Only a moment later he felt his knees buckle and hit the ground but that was fine, he supported his back against the trunk with stiff fingers he fumbled for his council issued mobile communication lacrima. Then he dialled the only number he had ever bothered to memorise.

"_Hello,"_ Levy's voice rang in his ear and, even as his blood was being used to water the grass beneath him, he felt himself relax slightly. _"This is Levy McGarden speaking."_

"Hey shrimp," Gajeel muttered into the speaker. "I need a favour."

He heard a sharp intake of breath and, for a moment, he could feel Levy forcibly stop herself from sprouting a dozen questions at him.

"_What do you need?"_

"An evac team," Gajeel said and winced as one of the stab wounds on his side throbbed. "Lily's in danger and I need him out now."

"_Location?"_ Levy asked and Gajeel could hear the rustling of papers and stomping of feet as Levy immediately did as he asked.

"East side of the Avatar headquarters," Gajeel said and rubbed a palm across his eyes.

Damnit. His vision was growing blurry.

"_Right,"_ Levy replied. _"I'm having Doranbolt teleport the team over, are you with Lily?"_

This was it, this was the moment he could ask for help and Levy would send it in a blink. No questions asked.

But he couldn't put his partner at risk. At least one of them had to leave here alive.

"Yeah, right by him," Gajeel huffed and felt his shoulders finally relax.

Lily would be safe.

"_Okay, we're headed out! Just don't do anything dumb in the meantime, that's an order!"_

"Of course, Mission Officer," he said before he was cut off by the disconnect tone in the commination lacrima.

He could feel the weight of his eyelids growing heavier and heavier and for a single moment he prayed. He prayed that she knew what she meant to him.

'_I'll be waiting.'_

* * *

**Wow, so those few days behind schedule turned into months... I'd like to say that I have a good explanation for this but really it was just... life? Idk, I fell behind and I apologize for that. I mean, angst week ended like 3 months ago. Hopefully I can make it up to you guys with the next few chapters- because I will definitely finish this story. I promise!**


	6. I Never Wanted This

Natsu pressed his face into the rubble that littered the ground, grinning as he felt a twinge of pain and a line of warm blood slide down his cheek.

He was back.

In the back of his mind he registered the sound of buildings crumbling and the cries of the town's people, but he paid them no mind. They were safe now.

There was no more fighting, no screams of pain as another one of his friends were beaten by his own two hands. No more pleas for him to remember who he was. The problem had never been about him forgetting.

Truly it had been that he had remembered too much.

But E.N.D was gone now, beaten by the only person who could stand against the strongest of Zeref's demons.

"Natsu! _Natsu!_"

He had always told her that she was the strongest of them all.

"Natsu," he felt the warm tears fall on the back of his neck, and he couldn't help but grimace as she rolled him over.

He hated it when she cried.

"I'm sorry," his angel, Lucy, whispered, her hair in a tangled mess and her normally smooth skin littered with scratches. "I didn't want this. I _never_ _wanted this!_"

Her frantic hands attempted to smooth his bloody hair out of his eyes, but quickly gave up in favour of scrubbing at the tear tracks on her cheeks. But she only succeeded in smearing his blood across her face with her own trembling fingers.

"Please be okay," a hiccup erupted from her mouth as she pressed her ear to his chest, searching for a heartbeat.

That was when Natsu realized that he had stopped breathing when he saw her.

A gasping breath filled his lungs with much needed air and caused Lucy to tumble back with fright. But the moment her eyes caught his, she sobbed his name again and threw her arms around his neck.

"Natsu. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she cried, and probably would've carried on longer if he hadn't moved his hand to her shoulder.

It hurt, everything hurt, but moving his arm was less painful then watching her cry.

"Don't- Don't be sorry," he wheezed as he pushed himself up onto his elbows. "You were awesome."

And she had been.

Being full conscious while that monster had controlled his body had made Natsu feel violated in too many ways to count, but he had forgotten all about that when Lucy walked onto the battlefield. Because she had shone.

And E.N.D had trembled.

Lucy fretted over Natsu's injured body, trying to encourage him to lay back down, before she gave up and slid in behind him so she could rest his head on her lap.

Just like old times.

"But you're so badly hurt and it's all my fault," she attempted to stifle another sob with her palm, but it seem almost as if nothing could stop her tears.

"I guess you could say," Natsu croaked but somehow still managed to muster up the energy for a grin. "You over did it."

For a moment Lucy just looked at Natsu in teary eyed confusion before the phrase clicked in her mind.

"Don't be stupid," she cried, as her tears increased ten-fold and her trembling lips forced themselves into a smile. "I don't overdo anything!"

And for a moment Natsu was pleased, pleased that he'd taken her mind off things, even for a second, but then he began to cough. His chest lurched and he tried to sit up, before slumping back into Lucy's lap was a breathless wheeze and warm liquid dribbled over his lips. The disgusting tang of iron filled his mouth and he knew that there would be no bouncing back from this one.

"Damn," he muttered as his chest heaved again, preparing for another fit. "That kinda hurt."

Lucy stared at him in horror before her head jolted up and she began to scan the deserted battlefield.

"Help! Please! Is Wendy there? Natsu needs help!" her voice echoed around them, but Natsu knew it was pointless.

E.N.D had made sure that there would be no one nearby if he was to fall.

It was a shame he had underestimated Lucy.

But, even as he looked back to her to tell this, he found that his sight was failing. Even the light that had always radiated from Lucy was beginning to blur at the edges. The vacant and crumbling buildings behind her had already vanished into darkness.

This was it, if he wanted to tell her then this was his last chance.

"Luce," his voice cracked and her eyes shot back to his face, her expression telling him that she knew what he was going to say.

And she didn't want to hear it.

"No!" she cried out, her hands clutching his shirt and pulling herself closer to him. "Don't say anything! You need to rest!"

But he couldn't let this go unsaid.

"Luce," he tried again as the details of her face began to blur together. "I couldn't have found a better partner, you know? We made a lot of fun memories, right?"

A sob broke from Lucy's chest as she buried her face in his shoulder, her warm tears sliding down the skin of his neck.

"They were the best."

Her voice was muffled and soft, but Natsu had never missed a word she had ever spoken. Broken pain filled every inch of his body as he draped his arm over her back, but he had one last thing to say. One last thing she needed to know.

And with his final breath he whispered in her ear.

"You were incredible."

And then she was gone, forever out of his reach.

* * *

**Annnd, we're back to your regularly scheduled Nalu. Uh, well, using a very loose definition of the term "regularly".  
****I'll probably be updating this story each Friday for the next, what, three weeks? Yeah. I'll finally be done then! Although, if I get the last story done early I might post the last few chapters a bit quicker. Anyway- I hope you all enjoyed hurting yourselves!**

**-Steph.**


	7. A Black Mark

It crept up his arm like a brand. But that wasn't what it was, was it?

A brand would be harmless, a puckering of the skin that had once been burned by a white hot piece of metal, but this thing grew. It grew as he slept, fuelled by his ever growing despair and hopeless ness, and as it grew he could feel it like molten lava in his veins.

Natsu stared at the black mark on his right arm, his body still wet and his hair still dripping from his dunk in the river. This was the only chance he had to take the bandage off anymore. When he was alone. He couldn't even let Happy see him like this.

Let alone Lucy.

A wave of fire spread beneath his skin at the thought of the blonde haired mage, just like it always did. Just laying eyes on her these days was an effort. But she'd notice if he began to avoid her.

To be honest, he was scared that she'd already noticed. Only the other day she had asked him if he wanted Wendy to have a look at his bandaged arm. He knew that the question had only been prompted by concern for him, concern for an oddly lingering injury. But he had managed to stutter back some excuse about not wanting to hassle Wendy about such a small wound. It didn't affect how he fought anyway.

He was lucky that Charle had agreed with him only moments later as he could tell from the look in Lucy's eyes that the first seed of suspicion had been planted.

He flinched again and began rubbing his hand along his arm as it throbbed once more. Dark thoughts that didn't belong to him surfacing in the back of his mind.

_Unnecessary. Fragile. Weak._

"No," Natsu growled, carefully keeping his voice low even though he wanted to scream. "She's not weak."

_You are._

Natsu clenched his eyes shut as his hand clenched around his right arm, almost as if he thought the pain would stop if his nails shredded the mark, and his heart lurched as flashed of memories appeared before his eyes.

Every time he didn't do something because he knew she wouldn't want him to.

Every time he was distracted in a fight because she wasn't in his line of sight.

Every time he glanced across the guild hall and caught the bright curve of her smile and wished that it would never fade-

"Yes," he panted desperately as he braced himself against the edge of the river. "Yes, I'm weak. But she isn't! She's strong, so _strong_. You should fear her."

_Fear a human? Please._

It was terrifying, the voice in his head. At first it had only been a jumble of thoughts that he knew were not his own, but it had grown. IN the last few weeks Natsu had begun to feel almost as if he was sharing his head with another person. Another person that could hear his every thought, his every secret desire.

Natsu bent down and splashed a handful of cool water over his face, desperately attempting to calm his thoughts, and then thrust his right arm into the river. He would like to say that it help but as the water flowed across his throbbing forearm all it did was allow him to stare at the black mark that spiralled up his arm. The ink black flames curled across his skin, beginning from his wrist and trailing up past his elbow. He didn't know how he was going to hide it without arousing even more suspicion from Lucy or attracting Wendy's attention if it continued any higher.

He was scared that if they saw it they would leave him. And he didn't have the strength to leave again.

Lucy's betrayed expression appeared in his mind's eye without his will and he knew exactly what the demon was trying to say.

_I know._

It knew. It had always know.

Natsu Dragneel wasn't weak, but he did have a weakness. And the demon knew. Images flashed through his mind, promises of what would happen when E.N.D finally entered this world. The destruction of his beloved guild. The death of his family. The incineration of every living thing on the plant.

And the torture that awaited the blonde mage with eyes that had always shone with hope.

For once Natsu could not destroy the threat that loomed before him and, with his once indomitable spirit slowly surrendering before his eyes, Natsu sank lower into the river and wished that he had enough strength to just drown.

* * *

**Firstly, I'm sorry that I was late. I suck, I know. ****Secondly, I'm sorry that I didn't even stick to the theme at all. I guess the inspiration bug just bit me in the wrong way.**

**Anyway, I wanted to thank anyone who is reading this and everyone who has reviewed! I'm probably the worst updater ever as I never stick to schedule and my reasons are never good enough, but you guys still read and review and tell me such wonderful heartwarming this i most definitely do not deserve! So, thank you!**

**\- Steph**


	8. Prisoner

What was it that Happy had told her future self?

"_Lucy is Lucy!"_

Oh, that's right. It had become more difficult to remember things like that recently. She'd have to try to remember that one.

Lucy's eyes fluttered close for a moment as she rested on the soft sheets of the king sized bed she slept in at night. The king sized bed for the king sized room in a king sized palace. Sometimes she wished she could go back to her Lucy sized bed in her Lucy sized apartment but such hopeless dreams were better off forgotten.

Now she had far simpler dreams, far more realistic dreams of fading away to nothing. Ah, now that was a fate she could still hope for.

The sound of her door being pushed open echoed in her ears and the voice that had once drawn a grin to her face followed it.

"Lucy."

It had been so long since she smiled. Since he had made her smile. Now all that she could manage was to pull herself upright and swing her legs over the side of the bed. Her glassy eyes settled on the figure of her best friend standing in the doorway and all she wanted to do was scream.

Scream and cry and run.

She could hardly recognise him. His eyes were cool, as if he were barely interested in the world around him, and the bright grin that she had once associated solely with him was absent, replaced only by a cruel smirk.

He was a completely different person. But, then again, she wasn't quite the same either.

"Luce," he called out to her again and his voice reminded her of better times, happier times. "Com'on, it's time to come out. Everyone's waiting."

Were they? Once upon a time, when Natsu said everyone he meant his family. Fairy Tail. But the only place they'd be waiting now was in death.

The thought filled Lucy with a white hot anger she hadn't felt in a long time. She had become so apathetic to the world but the memory of her family tied up and bleeding, dying as the suns ray's scorched their skin, reminded her of what this monster had taken from her.

What Natsu had taken from her.

All of a sudden, she didn't want to scream. She wanted to rage. She wanted to stand upon the roof of this blood soaked palace and cry out her hatred for the man she had once trusted with her life.

But try as she might she couldn't even move her lips to form the words of anger she wanted to scream at him.

Instead, all that left her was a sigh and the murmur of, "Natsu."

"That's the way Luce," the monster showed off his false smile and stepped forward to take her hands in his own. "I promise it won't take long."

Natsu pulled her slowly to her feet and began to lead her to the door and Lucy willed herself to snatch her hands back, to push him away, to claw his eyes out and leave him bleeding like he had done to her friends.

But her hands didn't even twitch.

Because Lucy was trapped, trapped within her own body. Forced to watch the world burn with a dead gaze and a scream that would never make it past her lips.

The two of them, the demon king and the lifeless doll of a girl, passed through the door and began their steady march down the dark corridor. The only source of light in this chilling place we the candles that hung on the walls, and they were few and far between. But the light wasn't necessary as their walk wasn't long, Lucy could already see their destination. A curtained balcony from which the king could address each and every one of his subjects.

She had almost forgotten about the planned announcement today. That, or she had tried to forget.

Their pace slowed as they reached the rich red curtains and Natsu pulled her to a halt just before they passed through.

"Are you excited?" Natsu asked her in a soft voice that made her want to start screaming again. "Everyone else is."

A slow and jerky nod was the only response he got, but it appeared to be enough to appease him.

Natsu glance once more at the curtain, and Lucy would've thought him nervous if it weren't for the fact that he was a soulless monster that _had_ no emotions, before turning back to her.

"They said that you should wear nicer clothes for the announcement today, but I knew you wouldn't want to wear one of those stuffy dresses," he shrugged and a shadow of a smile passed his lips. "And I like your normal clothes better anyway."

The lifeless husked made no attempt to respond, but it didn't appear that Natsu was looking for one. Instead he took one last breath, almost as if to calm himself, and threw open the curtains.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the harsh light they had just been bombarded with and then she wished that she could've stayed blinded forever.

Over the edge of the balcony she could see the gathered crowd, ready to hear today's announcement, but not one of them looked like they were glad to hear it. The only expression she could make out on anyone's face was defeat.

It was the same feeling that threatened to drown her every day.

As she and Natsu stepped out onto the balcony, she noted the presence of Zeref and the demon books that he had revived standing on the balcony beside them. Each of them bowed their heads in respect as Natsu passed them, but not one of them spared her a glance. She guessed it was better that way.

Zeref smiled, or as close as he could get, and stepped forward to clap Natsu on the back.

"Congratulations brother," he said and Natsu nodded in thanks, his own grin spreading across his face. "And you, dear Lucy. You look radiant this morning."

"Thank you," she murmured, but not a single trace of emotion could be heard in her voice.

She wished she could scream all of her hateful thoughts in his face but, even as her rage reached its peak, her expression remained impassive and distant. She hated this. She hated him, she hated everything.

She just wanted to be free of this prison.

"Shall I make the announcement?" Zeref asked and Natsu nodded without his once contagious enthusiasm.

Zeref turned towards the silent mass below and stood before the edge of the balcony. As he opened his mouth to speak, Lucy tried her best to block out the sound of his voice, but she couldn't keep out everything. Not today.

"And finally, may I present to you, your Lord E.N.D and his bride, Lucy Heartfilia!"

Applause rose from the crowd but it was a sad sound, without joy or celebration, and Natsu stepped forward to wave to his people, tugging Lucy forward with his other hand. A smile spread across his face as her hand rose to wave alongside his and Lucy began to sob.

Even though she felt the pain and despair just as keenly as she had in the past, not a single tear formed in her eyes, they remained glassy and emotionless. No longer a reflection of how she felt inside.

'_Lucy is Lucy.'_

Happy's words echoed in her mind but they could do nothing to ease her pain, because how could she be Lucy when she had no control over who is was anymore.

Beside the prison that walked and talked, the demon king gazed upon the crowd and ignored the screamed apologies that rang in his mind.

Given enough time, the dragon boy would stop on his own.

* * *

**Haha, okay. I get it universe. I can't be trusted to make a single promise. Ever. Got it.**

**Sorry about not making the deadline last Friday. I won't bother you guys with trivial excuses, I'll just remind you that there is only ONE CHAPTER LEFT! Yes! I'm so excited! I'm working really hard on this one- I want it to be the best (and it also deals with a kinda sensitive topic, so I'm taking my time with it). Okay, I'll see you guys next week with the next chapter, but-**

**No promises.**

**-Steph**


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